I love the fact that my kids are really into coloring.
I do not love the fact that we end up with little, broken crayon pieces everywhere that are virtually wasted because even little toddler fingers cannot properly grasp them anymore. Besides that, it just isn't as much fun to color with broken crayons.
Last year for Riley's birthday, I bought him a box of art supplies in which I included the Crayola Twistable crayons. Let me tell you, they are worth the price if your kids color as much as mine do. They come in a plastic tube and as you use up the tip, you twist to use more of the crayon.
No breaking, no wasting, no paper peeling. Happy mommy.
The only thing that would be better is if they would sell tubes like these to fit regular crayons and you could reuse them by inserting new crayons. Get on the ball, Crayola! :)
Aside from the Twistables, we still have a collection of crayon-bits that I reluctantly started throwing away as I'd find them all over my house . . . until I came across this fabulous idea. You can take the broken crayon pieces and melt them down into rainbow crayons! Brilliant!
So here's our go at it today:
1. Peel the paper off the crayons.
2. Line a muffin tin with foil baking cups. 
3. Fill the foil cups with the broken crayon pieces. 
4. Bake in the oven at 150 degrees (F) for 15-20 min or until wax is melted. (Keep a close eye on it and make sure the fan is on to reduce the fumes). 
5. Let them cool and harden. (Takes 5-10 min)
6. Pop out the crayons and color your heart out!
Now . . .
10 comments:
how timely! I just yesterday pulled out all the broken crayon duds and couldn't bear to toss them so on the counter they sit in a ziploc. WOO HOO! I assume the *foil* baking cups is a must? I have baking cups in the house but not foil.......just curious.
Wow that is perfect timing!
You can use a muffin tin without the foil, but only if you want to designate one of them as the "Crayon tin" because I wouldn't recommend baking in it afterward. You could try the paper cups, but my thought is that it would be harder to pop them out. You could probably line the tin with aluminum foil if you don't have the tin cups. Let me know how it goes!
This is a great tip!! We're not coloring too much yet, but I'll definitely have to remember this one b/c I'm sure that time will come before we know it!
aluminum foil - you are genious! great thinking-I'll let you know how it works out!
This is a lot of fun! We have done it twice now and the kids always love it. I don't line my with foil. I spray a tiny bit of pam but you don't have to do that either. Don't spray too much. If there is too much it can make a coating on the top. You can easily get rid of it by coloring a bit. Once they cool they pop out very easily. I make mine in the mini muffin tins. Just another idea :O)
Thanks Melissa... I had heard of this quite awhile ago but had forgotten about it... my kids, especially Lauren (6) colors constantly, and like you said, we are always throwing away the old pieces of crayons... I bet she would love this idea- can't wait to try it! =)
I haven't tried that in a while. It looks like fun!
We do that too! Too much cuteness at your house!
I've seen these around and think it's such a great idea! And you make it look so easy!! Thanks for sharing this!
:)
~Tabitha~
freshmommyblog.com
We just got the twistable crayons this weekend and LOVE them! We've done a similar project, but I have heart shapped muffin tins, so they made cute Valentine's gifts (only I forgot to tell everyone what they were and someone thought it was soap)
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